“Wouldn’t it be easier to buy the insect powder?” asked practical Ethel Brown.

“Very much,” laughed her grandfather, “but this is good fun because it doesn’t always blossom ‘true,’ and you never know whether you’ll get a pink or a deep rose color.  Now, let me see,” continued Mr. Emerson thoughtfully, “you’ve arranged for your hollyhocks and your phlox—­those will be blooming by the latter part of July, and I suppose you’ve put in several sowings of sweetpeas?”

They all laughed, for Roger’s demand for sweetpeas had resulted in a huge amount of seeds being sown in all three of the gardens.

“Where are we now?” continued Mr. Emerson.

“Now there ought to be something that will come into its glory about the first of August,” answered Helen.

“What do you say to poppies?”

“Are there pink poppies?”

“O, beauties!  Big bears, and little bears, and middle-sized bears; single and double, and every one of them a joy to look upon!”

“Put down poppies two or three times,” laughed Helen in answer to her grandfather’s enthusiasm.

“And while we’re on the letter ‘P’ in the seed catalogue,” added Mr. Emerson, “order a few packages of single portulaca.  There are delicate shades of pink now, and it’s a useful little plant to grow at the feet of tall ones that have no low-growing foliage and leave the ground bare.”

“It would make a good border for us at some time.”

“You might try it at Dorothy’s large garden.  There’ll be space there to have many different kinds of borders.”

“We’ll have to keep our eyes open for a pink lady’s slipper over in the damp part of the Clarks’ field,” said Roger.

“O, I speak for it for my wild garden,” cried Helen.

“You ought to find one about the end of July, and as that is a long way off you can put off the decision as to where to place it when you transplant it,” observed their grandfather dryly.

“Mother finds verbenas and ‘ten week stocks’ useful for cutting,” said Margaret.  “They’re easy to grow and they last a long time and there are always blossoms on them for the house.”

“Pink?” asked Ethel Blue, her pencil poised until she was assured.

“A pretty shade of pink, both of them, and they’re low growing, so you can put them forward in the beds after you take out the bulbs that blossomed early.”

“How are we going to know just when to plant all these things so they’ll come out when we want them to?” asked Della, whose city life had limited her gardening experience to a few summers at Chautauqua where they went so late in the season that their flower beds had been planted for them and were already blooming when they arrived.

“Study your catalogues, my child,” James instructed her.

“But they don’t always tell,” objected Della, who had been looking over several.

“That’s because the seedsmen sell to people all over the country—­people living in all sorts of climates and with all sorts of soils.  The best way is to ask the seedsman where you buy your seeds to indicate on the package or in a letter what the sowing time should be for our part of the world.”